14. art-n-sacto nr. 1
A firecracker exploded on his front porch. His two cats darted under
the bed for cover and Denver took a quantum leap back to reality. It
was Micky Hill, his best friend. Permanent student, local bon vivant,
freelance journalist, fellow artist, he had recently decided to live
in his Ford Galaxy as a performance art action for a year.
Micky was a rogue who had left behind a string of broken hearts on
his travels through the bedrooms of female sacramentians.. They did
not understand his unwavering devotion to his anti-constructivist neo-
erroristic performance lifestyle. Unfortunately his wanton behavior
often led to their eternal scorn and treatment for various sexually
transmitted diseases.
Still naked, Denver closed his diary and got up from bed to open the
door for Micky, who was eating his staple breakfast of stickybuns and
swigging down a cup of java.
“Hey Micky. The cats and I will never get used to your calling card.
Where’ve you been?”
“I’ve been hangin’ out with this freaky woman.”
“Wo! Micky! You shaved your head!”
“Yup. I did it with miss freaky at the Little Cheaper.”
“I was thinking about doing the same thing myself.” He rubbed his
freshly washed hair. “… to purge myself.” He disappeared into the
bedroom.
“Hey. You got a cigarette?” Micky asked, unknowingly spitting out
little bits of stickybun.
“We’ll have to go down to June’s and get some more. I smoked the last
one last night.”
“You know who I just saw on the street just now?”
Denver waited.
“Natty.”
“That’s good to know. Did you talk to him?” he shouted from the bedroom.
“Yeah. We talked a little. You know how it is with him, always
shouting obscenities at you.”
“I wonder how fame’s affectin’ him?”
“He seems to be handlin’ it okay. Seems normal to me.”
“I like Natty. It’s the others I have a problem with. Especially,” he
paused, “… you know, the good lookin’ lead, the one who thinks he’s
the biggest turd of them all.”
“Say it again. I didn’t understand.” He placed his coffee cup and
bakery bag on Denver’ desk and picked up the remote to zap the radio
off.
“The Art Stud, you know.”
“Oh you mean, Joe Ramsey, the one the chicklets go all nuts about,
the one who’s got permanent bad breath.”
“Yeah. That’s the one.”
“Like I said …” He wandered around the apartment, waiting for Denver
to dress. “I got lucky with a babe with car trouble last night. She
was on her way to Fresno. You should of seen these weird scars on her
body. Worse than mine.” He rubbed the scars on his head. “She said
she was a victim of a violent crime when she was a kid. I think she
had one eye but I’m not sure. I forgot if she told me she had a glass
eye.”
Denver returned dressed in yellow cut-offs and t-shirt and handed
Micky a cigarette. “I found two on the floor. Life’s simple
pleasures. You can smoke one when you’re finished inhaling the
stickybuns.”
“Thanks.” He took the cigarette. “Geez man! Are you going to wear
that t-shirt until it drops off your body? Everyone in town knows
that Peach dumped you. I know it by heart. Stop thinking about old
times, blah, blah, blah … When are you ever going to get over it?”
“Listen to you talk, Mr. Pyro-man. Goin’ on with your fireworks,
living in the Galaxy and pickin’ up freaky babes at the gas station.
I can ask you the same thing.”
“I’m doing it for art.”
“That’s what they all say. Well, so am I. I am celebrating my
sadness. I can’t force anything. You are your own circumstances.
Besides, where in this town am I goin’ to meet a man who is strong
enough for me?” He paused not expecting a reply. “Peach was a good
fuck. Great sex, sex that bonds, but he’s anal. I mean retentive. I
mean he hoards things.” As he was speaking, Denver moved around the
apartment, straightening random objects in the chaos. “I know
everyone knows. I am confronting the unspoken. I want them to talk
about what they did when they were dumped.”
“You’re not the only one suffering on this planet.” Micky licked his
lips free of sticky residue and rubbed them back and forth with the
back of his hand. “Poor Denver. Boo-hoo. How long will this song go on?”
“Okay then. If everyone has been through it and everyone knows about
it. I mean songs, poems, ballads, operas, soaps and sonnets have been
written about it. I mean c’mon!” He extended both arms outward, palms
raised. “So why do we still break up? Love is supposed to be
boundless. It’s only us stupid humans who give love borders. And that
basically sums up the world’s problems. Why do we keep splitting up and
making the same mistakes?”
“Dilute man. I don’t want to go there with you lesbian. Or whatever
you’re calling yourself nowadays. But Denver, you got to move on. You
can only celebrate so much. You’re the one who’s always sayin’ to
leave the party before you vomit on the hostess’ legs. And lesbian,
that shirt is retching.”
“Okay. Okay already.” He took off the shirt and threw it at Micky.
Micky caught it, and while Denver was in the bedroom, stuffed it into
the bakery bag.
“So tell me why the babe was so freaky.” Denver asked as he came
back wearing another t-shirt.
“First of all, she had these breasts you wouldn’t believe.” He cupped
his hands in front of him to demonstrate their weight and size. “And
this weird smell about her.”
“So that’s what I’ve been smellin’.”
“Yeah. She put some on me. It was like a mixture of that patuli oil
and the funk of a bitch in heat.” He raised his chin to imitate a
howling dog, and stuck the cigarette behind his ear.
“What’s it called? I Repel by Seymour Butts?”
“No. Luv-to-Suc by I. P. Freely,” he retorted. “She was ready to
boogie and so was I. It must’ve been the waxing moon.”
“Damn Micky. It’s no wonder you don’t have a lot of friends and get
freaky chicks that smell like bitches in heat. You have a marked
propensity for foul living that only an ACNE artist like myself can
fully appreciate.”
“Yeah. Like I was saying …” Micky sat down on a dilapidated wooden
office chair. “This chicklet got kind of mystical on me there for
awhile. It went beyond new age and all that esoteric bullshit. She
said that she was living out in the ’burbs somewhere with a cousin,
but I told her she could stay at your house when she’s downtown, if
that’s okay with you.”
“Pick ’em off the streets and bring ’em here. Micky, why don’t you!”
Denver reverted to his delta dialect. “Let’s go out and find others
with car problems. Let’s cruise the freeways for unsuspecting
motorists and lure ‘em into the Grid.” Denver was referring to
downtown, a thirty square block area boxed in by four rivers, two
natural and two man made: the sacramento and the american, I-5
and Interstate 80.
“Then, let’s be nice to ‘em so they’ll never leave. And we can add
one more to the bored lot that’s already here just hangin’ around
waitin’ for something to happen in ‘Almost Town’. The trouble is,
Micky-poo, and you know as well as I do …” He shook his right index
finger at him. “… nothing ever does happen around here. I mean
everything does almost happen …” he paused, “but only almost.”
“Yeah, almost,” Micky repeated.
“Why don’t you take me to almost town? Why don’t you take me to
almost town?” Denver sang, moving to an inner disco beat.
“Yeah. Serious pretty much the same. Day in and day out. I’m tired of
livin’ in nirvana. “So …” he changed the subject, “… whacha almost
feelin’ like doin’ today?”
“I got no real plans,” Denver said and changed melodies. “I’m blue. I
do not know what to do. I feel so lonely without …” and he slumped
down into his recently-acquired couch, upholstered in tweed plaid.
“It’s goin’ to he hotter than a whore’s pussy in hell and we’d better
think of somethin’ cool to do.”
“You feelin’ like a shoeshine?” Micky asked. “How about a movie?”
“No. You know my feelings about supportin’ the Hollywood hype.
And anyway, I got no coins.”
“I dunno. I thought we could get in for free. I mean, who’s workin’
at the Tower? Is anybody workin’ there today that we know, so that
we can get in for free?”
“Probably René and in that case we won’t get in.”
“Why? What’d you do? I thought she’s a lesbian like you.”
“Oh …” Denver waved his arm in front of him. “I went where she did
not want to go. I was up in her face the other night at the Murder
Bar and called her on her ethnic lesbian thang and as usual, she
couldn’t take a joke. I even told her that I thought that in my past
life I was a poor slave child. Reincarnation or not, I’m not allowed
to call her girlfriend or for that matter, fellow lesbian. Fuck that.
Call it subjective discrimination but I’m trying to communicate.
People call me all sorts of things. Fag. Asshole. Cocksucker. But I
don’t get all upset about it. And besides, lesbian is not a dirty
word and I have a right to use it and call myself one if I so choose.
I’d rather be called a lesbian than gay any day. I’ve never been
impressed …” He clipped quotation marks with his fingers. “… by my
gay sisters. They’re about as socially conscious as a piece of smoked
ham.”
“Denver, have you had your coffee yet? It sounds like you’re all
wound-up already.”
Denver shook his head.
“Then let’s go to the Bum ’n Burn and check out the papers.” He was
referring to a coffee house whose initials they had expropriated to
describe their café culture.
“Why don’t you just go get some coffee at Sunbread’s and come back
here? In the meantime, I’ll roll a joint.”
Micky remembered the cigarette behind his ear, pulled it out and
motioned for a light.
“There’s some matches on the table somewhere. Hey, did I tell you
who called me the other day?”
Micky shook his head before lighting his cigarette then casually
tossed the matches back onto Denver’s cluttered workspace. Denver
leaned over the sofa and hit the message button on the answering
machine.
“I didn’t know your mother was such a bitch. I’d like to meet her.”
Micky said after listening to the first message.
“Hello. It’s me Vella, calling you from out of the abyss …”
Micky blew out a puff of smoke and shook his head. As he listened to
the desperation in her voice, it brought back feelings of frustration
and memories of absurd moments. He covered his ears with his hands,
shook his head, and started laughing to himself as her desperation
became exaggerated. The machine clicked off with three beeps.
After a pause Micky said: “So Vella wants you to tell me that she
appreciates my postcards. I can’t believe it.” He took a puff. “After
all that I went through with her. She is one crazy home girl.”
Denver remained silent.
“Sure, okay. We can see her if that’s what you are getting at. She
has a cool apartment. Yeah, okay. We can take a ride down to Stockton.”
“We can take the Galaxy?”
“I don’t think we have much choice. It would take us twice as long if
we took the bus and Bart.”
“Well then, I’m ready when you are,” Denver said, rising and
snatching a crumpled Slaveway grocery bag from the coffee table.
“I thought we were goin’ to smoke a joint first.”
“Naw. I’ll roll it in the car, instead.”
“Look,” Micky said, “I’ll meet you at the Galaxy. I think maybe I can
find another cigarette in there somewhere and rejoice again in one of
life’s little pleasures.” Micky walked out holding his bakery bag out
of Denver’s line of sight.
Without much thought, Denver searched the apartment for the supplies
necessary for an overnight trip to Stockton and stuffed them into the
bag, and then dumped a handful of Kitty Bits into a plastic food bowl
and instructed the cats to look after themselves until he returned.
He grabbed his sunglasses, keys and the envelope with his check for
the telephone company, and walked out of his dilapidated Victorian
slamming the front door and shaking the entire building. As he locked
the door of the building that he had managed to preserve from
demolition by remaining an occupant and overseeing minor maintenance,
he wondered whether his abode was really worth securing.
“Hi Janet,” said Denver, stopped his descent and greeted his next-door
neighbor. “Oh Honey, your garden looks wonderful from up here.”
“Oh hi, Denver.” Janet scratched her face. “Thanks. I’ve been working
on it a lot. I’m planting my Rainbow Patch. I got these seeds at the
nursery. Some genetic variety of flowers that grows like a rainbow.”
“Really?” Denver wondered if that was actually possible to achieve in
the plant world.
“That’s what I said. Yeah.” She rubbed her cheek with her shoulder.
“So I thought I’d give it a try, Should be pretty interesting.”
“Are they annuals, perennials, or a menace?”
“Gawd, I hope not.” She rubbed her chin with the back of her hand.
“It took me forever to get rid of that raspberry vine that I thought
would look so nice growing on the house. But it was like a weed,
coming up everywhere, even into the house. I even pulled a little
clump of it up the other day, in fact.”
“You’re garden looks great, like every year. And your gardenias,
their aroma just permeates my house,” he said, applying light
cynicism on the last sentence.
“Boy, aren’t they great this year? They keep on blooming for months.
Must be because of all the rain this winter. But sometimes their
scent does overpower me. Must be good for something, though. Could
keep away the nightcrawlers, I guess. At least everything’s growing
like mad. Got to be thankful for that.”
“Thank you global warmin’. Well, we’re going to Stockton to see that
Vella chic. Do you know her?”
“Yeah, vaguely. I think my husband knows her. He used to visit her
once in a while.”
“I’ll tell her that I ran into ya’. And say hello to your husband for
me.” Denver turned and checked both ways before crossing the street
to where Micky’s car was parked.
“Okay. Ciao. Have a nice day.” Janet yelled back, and returned to
hacking away at the weeds.
“That’s what they all say,” Denver retorted under his breath.
Micky, who had picked up a bottle of Night Train left at the bottom
of Denver’s steps by a bum, was standing next to the Galaxy pouring
the remaining drops into his mouth. When Denver approached, he
chucked it into the alley where it shattered on the asphalt radiating
in the summer heat, and scared away the few emaciated pigeons that
were plucking around a lopsided dumpster overfilled with kitchen waste.
Smiling, Micky proclaimed, “Hangin’ low in the big tomato.”
No comments:
Post a Comment